The prevalence of 17 common respiratory viruses in patients with respiratory illness but negative for COVID‐19: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Background and Aims Second to COVID‐19 pandemic, other viral respiratory infections are still important causes of human diseases or co‐infections. Hence, the present study was carried out to investigate the common respiratory viruses in patients with respiratory illness diagnosed negative for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 in primary screening. Methods In a cross‐sectional study, a real‐time PCR was carried out using HiTeq. 17 Viro Respiratory pathogen One Step RT‐PCR Kit (Genova, Bonda Faravar, Bioluence, Tehran, Iran). Results A total of 311 individuals (mean age ± SD: 48.2 ± 21.7 years, range: 1–97 years) underwent second PCR. Among these, 161 (51.7%) were female. In total, 55 (17.6%) cases (mean age ± SD: 45.7 ± 18.1 years) were found positive for respiratory viruses panel in the second PCR. The HCoV‐OC43/HKU1 was in 5.4% (17/311), Flu A in 4.5% (14/311), HCoV‐229E/NL63 in 2.8% (9/311), HMPV in 1.9% (6/311), HPiV 1, 2, 3 in 1.2% (4/311), HRSV in 0.9% (3/311), and HAdV in 0.6% (2/311) of the cases studies. Also, co‐infection was detected in 4 samples (1.2%). In addition, sore throat (0.028), headache (p = 0.016), and body pain (p = 0.0001) were statistically the most significant symptoms in studied cases. Conclusion According to the findings of our study, respiratory virus infections and co‐infections were 17.6% and 1.2% frequent, respectively. Interestingly, nearly half of our positive cases (47.2%) were identified by coronaviruses (ОС43, Е229, NL63, and HKUI), followed by influenza A virus (25.4%). However, for more comprehensive results, we recommend using greater sample size.

Keywords

• COVID‐19
• prevalence
• multiplex real‐time PCR
• respiratory illness
• viral infection